No Ordinary Love
by Assassin For Hire
Summary: A vignette of the morning before New X-Men 138... Before Jean stumbles upon Scott's torrid affair with Emma...and the Summers' "perfect relationship" is on the brink of being laid to waste. Please R/R.


**"NO ORDINARY LOVE"**  
by Kabanas and FataMorgana

  
**Reference:** Before the events of New X-Men 138.

  
If there was anything strange to be said about the perfectly lovely Wednesday morning that dawned a scant hour ago, bearing blue skies, a warm breeze, and every promise of summer on it's way, it was that Jean Grey was still in bed. In keeping with her own personal tradition, Phoenix made a point of being one of the first to get up every day, to pitch a hand in preparing breakfast for the disgruntled mass of teenage minds she now taught. But waking up hardly held the thrall for her that it used to, and over the last few months, it seemed as if the incurable optimism Jean was synoymous with had faded. Opening her eyes every morning now brought about a sense of doubt - what time had Scott joined her in the suite last night? In fact, had he joined her at all?

There were times when she was sure his side of the bed wasn't even wrinkled. The same amount of times, Jean had caught up with him later in the day and known irrefutibly just by looking at him that he'd stayed up all night working on the Blackbird, or straining himself to do just one more sim in the Danger Room. Sometimes she wished she could just retreat into the garden she'd created in her mind when she was twelve years old. But she had responsibilities to attend to, and slacking off had never been an option for Phoenix.

So Jean swallowed the ill feeling in her gut and sat up, splaying her hand out to push open the floor-to-ceiling curtains that decorated the Summers' suite. Sunlight spilled in, shot her copper hair through with flames of red that were only metaphorphorical until she called upon her powers, and made her feel vaguely better. Her eyes took a moment to adjust before she stretched and rose from the mattress, glancing at the figure behind her on the bed with some trepidation. _'Let him sleep,'_ she thought. _'I have a plane to catch.'_

The routine between them had not changed. Scott always awoke when he felt his wife shifting around on the bed, listened to her moving around beside him still, felt her withdrawing her heat from his body. Instead of turning over to embrace her this morning, however, Scott remained in the personal space they each had staked out for themselves and observed the cold distance growing between them. 

There was work to be done this Wednesday morning. Piles of it. Feed the children. Teach the children. Train the children. Babysit the children. Instead of breezing by his thirties like most other men, Cyclops' responsibilities had grown exponentially throughout the years, now that his role as field leader also doubled as a mentor of sorts to the next generation. It made Scott wish for old times. When he had more privacy with his wife. When their relationship was not so publicized by the media. When there were fewer students running about. When he didn't have to worry about endangering the lives of young mutants who had unexpectedly been tucked underneath his paternal wing.

Scott was feeling restless. Old. While the man felt that he was approaching maturity's peak, Scott had yet to reap any real benefits from his own life's work. Perhaps the only good he saw in being returned to this life was the fact that his merger with Apocalypse had made him see the world in a different light. This was a new Cyclops, one who saw all too well into the monotony of his own lifestyle, who craved for mobility in the social ladder, who wanted to see -progress- in these changing times.

Progress, however, remained elusive to Cyclops, and he felt its absence in all aspects of his life... His role in the X-Men... (Was there really a need for a field leader anymore with the team becoming so self-sufficient?) His dealings in politics... His marriage... In fact, Scott was never one to question his own faith until recently, but that was something he didn't want to get into this morning. He kept his eyes closed and tried to sleep on, tried to block out the sound of Jean's footsteps... but her presence was too heavy on his mind.

"Morning, sweetheart," Scott greeted quietly, his voice murmuring against the pillow, too sleepy to turn over onto his back. He caught the curves of his wife's figure in front of the window, blanketed by the morning. 

Jean donned her silken nightrobe with some haste when Scott spoke, and had to pause and wonder when the modesty about her figure she'd finally shed after they married had returned to her.

"Morning," she replied, and resumed going about the business of selecting a clean uniform for her trip. When she vanished into the spacious ensuite bathroom, his Oakleys were left on the dresser outside it. Another chasm of separation that got shuffled under the guise of routine and convenience. There was no disputing that the Summers' relationship was a mere wraith of what it had been. In the shower, Jean's thoughts fell to a regular path of brooding and by the time she'd dried off and dressed -- all behind the closed door of the bathroom, no surprise -- she was firmly set in the no-nonsense, business-like approach she'd been applying to her life of late. Travel papers were selected off her desk where she'd left them out last night.

"I'm going to Unayzah today to pick up Sooraya," Jean went on. It was her first announcement to him about her trip to Saudi Arabia, before turning to face Scott for the first time this morning. Her expression held naught but an interest in getting on with the day's activities.

Light blue jeans, a clean white t-shirt, and spare glasses decorated her husband's mussed figure by the time Jean had finished in the shower. He would find time for that himself after breakfast, when he did most of his reading. Scott gave Jean no more than a passing glance to check over her attire (one that he approved with jealous abandon, wanting himself to be with her on that flight), and left behind a tidy and creaseless bed in his wake.

"Oh, that's right. The girl." His replies were disrupted in between washing his face and brushing his teeth. "I'll be helping Hank and the Professor arrange the chairs for this afternoon's orientation." 

Scott buried his face beneath a towel and replaced the Oakleys over his shut blue eyes. _Wish you could be here... Wish you didn't have to go... Wish you'd take me with you..._

"We're expecting about twenty-five different news channels from all over the coast. A few parents, too." He leaned against the awning to the bathroom and scratched at his bare forearm, studying Jean's complete and utter fixation with her packing.

"You want me to drive you to the airport?" More quietly this time. A bit more direct and sincere.

Jean hardly glanced up from her inspection of her documentation, but when she did, it was with a brief, fleeting smile for the question. No matter how rough it got, no matter how confused Jean got about where she stood with him, he could still make her smile, even if only for a scant second or two. Alas...

"Don't worry about it. Warren said he might come along," she paused to inspect the watch at her wrist. "If he manages to get back on time from wherever it is he's been the past few days."

A brief topical scan of the mansion at large revealed a stray thought from her husband, who's mental privacy she'd distinctly observed of late. Brows creasing, she glanced up again from her papers.

"Did you wanna come?"

Scott mulled over the thought, his protest dragging on in the form of a low, hesitant growl. Summers' version of a whimper. "Bad idea, Jean..." he declined eventually, lifting off the wall to seat himself on the bed just to be near the vicinity of her touch. They didn't do enough of that nowadays, but he tried. Maybe no longer with all his might, because he was tired and occupied, but at least there were still noble intentions behind his every action. Was it really so pathetic of him to ask for a kiss in the morning?

Scott stared at her busy hands and let the morning rays wash over him, wondering when it was he finally became more comfortable at being just Scott and not the infallible Cyclops everyone, excluding Emma, expected him to be. Where did his inspiration go? Why was he going at everything these days with such a half-assed attempt? Maybe it was because his private life was suffering more monotony than his work. Was that it? Scott's responsibilities never weighed heavier than his love for his wife, and that didn't change in the least even now, but... But something was different. Jean distanced herself from him more and more. She got cold, like this morning. A frozen flame.

"Charles is edgy about making this conference flawless, after Gladiator's untimely visit during the media coverage last month. I have to drive in and out of town to pick up the podium, the banners..." Scott trailed off, realizing how helpless he must have sounded at that moment. How in the hell could those things possibly mean more to him than spending a day out with his wife? Scott stood and studied the garden outside, catching a familiar figure in white. His mind wandered. With some finality, he added, "I should stay at home."

Jean abandoned her inspection of her birth certificate, for goodness sakes, to watch his progress across the room. She wanted to insist he leave the mundane chores to one of the others and fly to Saudi Arabia with her. It was only one day... but then, one didn't argue with that tone of voice. The one that said the battle between what he wanted to do and what he thought he should do had ended predictably with a KO to spontanaeity. 

Pursing her lips at his preoccupation with whatever it was he was watching out the window, she sighed lightly and folded the papers in her hand. She wondered if they were approaching a point of no return here as rapidly as it felt like. Once, she would have instinctivly reached out to him, or his mind, or both, without a second thought because she knew he needed her, even if he rarely admitted it. She didn't know if that was true any more, and so indecision plagued her. She was too proud to look into his mind, and he was too proud to admit anything to her. It was a stalemate neither of them seemed willing to break. Let down once again by her dwingling sense of forwardness, Jean tucked the papers away in the back pocket of her uniform's leather pants and wandered over stiffly to place a dutiful kiss on his cheek.

"Mmkay. I'll be back before midnight." She turned, unable to think of anything else to say.

Hmmm. Scott leaned, for the briefest of moments, into that kiss, as though by lingering under her lips, his cheek could catch nuances of emotion from her. Any emotion whatsoever. It was alright when he couldn't detect any... He wasn't showing her much of the same courtesy either. But given that they hadn't been intimate in the past three days (oh yes, he kept tabs now), Scott felt he owed it to himself to be more responsive to her. Scott tore his attention away from the rose garden and tried to kiss her properly. His aim, his perfect aim, missed, and landed his lips against the side of her neck in an awkward gesture. Scott wasn't the one who pulled away from that exchange, but he caught enough of her perfume to keenly feel his abandonment. He'd miss her all day. But that was alright, too, he told himself. He needed this right now... This distance... this alien hostility, this competition... whatever this 'thing' was between them that growing more irrepairable by the weeks... And yet, despite all this, he loved her like no other. There was no distracting Scott when his wife took on that disappointed tone in her voice. He straightened from his bent angle.

"I'll be in touch before then."

Regardless his height, Scott seemed the lesser invidual then at moment. 'I love you' was a hard thing to say when you weren't sure how it would be received anymore.

It felt like some cruel mockery of the days before they'd admitted any mututal attraction to each other. Neither would be the first to say anything, and it would just sit there, between them, making life impossibly uncomfortable. At least then there was something to hope for. She paused when he moved to offer his own kiss, tried to make the action less disasterous. Despite the dire nature of their relationship at the moment, she loved him as much as he still loved her. 

Shrugging into the trenchcoat that routinely accompanied her uniform these days, Jean tried on her best smile and nodded. But remained painfully silent. Her hand almost stalled over his, but all that came of the would-be tender touch was a slight pull of her manicured nails atop his palm. She was out the door before the caress could be read any further into. In the hallway, the mirror showed an aching expression as she passed by it, as she got farther away from another failed attempt at taking down one more road block between them.

Back in the room, Scott raised that shunned hand and brushed it along his lips, inhaling lingering traces of her scent that wasn't really there, just made up. Jean would never feel that kiss the way Scott wanted her to feel it, but it made everything so much better pretending that she was still its recipient somehow. Like Jean could pick it up telepathically... Because if anything could be said of what just transpired, it would be that emotional pain hurt way the hell more than any physical stress Scott ever felt did. 

Still...that sort of pain had grown dull over time. It was no longer a shooting sensation in his chest but rather a heavy burden forever lurking in the back of his mind, weighing down his shoulders. Lately, yes, he had found a substitution in Emma -- a new sense of freedom, a new idea of fun, a new confidante... someone who liked listening to him, someone he liked talking _to_ -- but at the end of the day, when he lay in bed with his wife and watched her drift off to sleep without a care in the world for what was going on in his mind, he stopped thinking of Emma. There was only one woman he had ever loved in his lifetime and Scott didn't see those feelings for his wife changing any time soon...

Summers sighed and returned his attention back to the garden, which was now empty for his free perusal with a clear conscience. He had to do this now, if he was to ever do it. Mind made up, the man sharply turned on his heels and headed for the door. He would end things with Emma that afternoon once and for all.

  
  


**THE END...**

(But we all know how successful _that_ went.)

  
**Disclaimer:** Cyclops, Phoenix, and Emma Frost copyright Marvel. Morgana and I just love Grant Morrison enough to try our hand at the love triangle. We would very much appreciate a review. :) 


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